Studies in the Bible and Antiquity
Keywords
Book of Mormon, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Biblical studies, religious scholarship
Abstract
Recent years have witnessed a growing recognition in the academy that the Book of Mormon deserves closer attention than it has received. Not surprisingly, adherents to the various Mormon faiths have long read the book with some care. But larger numbers of believing and nonbelieving academics have come to recognize that, despite its often didactic style and relative literary artlessness, the Book of Mormon exhibits remarkable sophistication. This is perhaps nowhere truer than in those passages where the volume interacts—whether explicitly or implicitly—with biblical texts (always in or in relation to the King James rendering). Close reading of the Book of Mormon makes clear that Mormonism’s founding text models a profoundly inventive biblical hermeneutic that deserves a place in the burgeoning field of reception history. How does Mormon scripture understand and react to particular biblical texts, and what might be learned about the potential meanings of those biblical texts in light of such interactions?
BYU ScholarsArchive Citation
Spencer, Joseph M.
(2016)
"The Book of Mormon as Biblical Interpretation: An Approach to LDS Biblical Studies,"
Studies in the Bible and Antiquity: Vol. 8, Article 8.
Available at:
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/sba/vol8/iss1/8